Chicken Processing

As NorthernMommy puts it, NorthernDaddy "processed" the chickens the other day.

 

As NorthernDaddy puts it, he set up a station for bleeding the birds, a station for scalding the birds, a station for plucking the birds, and a station for gutting the birds.  Then he went through all of those stations with six individual birds, with breaks for packaging them up for the freezer. Then, there was clean up - washing everything down with bleach and putting it away.

 

"Processing" sounds way easier than all of that.....

 

 

A few notes for next time (mainly as a reminder for NorthernDaddy):

 

-Get a turkey fryer. A Coleman camp stove does not bring a huge pot of water up to 150 degrees in any kind of rapid manner. It's slow, and uses a ton of fuel.

 

- That rinky-dink white plastic table is an easy surface to clean, but it's about a foot too short to use for butchering. Those "ugh" and "oof" sounds that NorthernDaddy was making are not because of the icky chicken guts, they were because his back was cramping up. Get a taller table next time.

 

- The nitrile gloves? Nice thought, but they only lasted through the second bird. Just do the job bare-handed and bleach your fingers later.

 

- Wet feathers smell horrible, like wet dog. Do yourself a favor and put a breath mint inside your nostrils - treat it like a delivery to that house on Buck Lane (how do ya like that reference, J ?).

 

-The bird that dies the worst (twitching, jerking, and spouting blood everywhere) will do so when visitors stop by. Take action accordingly, and set up a Sea-World-style splash zone.

 

- Of all the items that are pulled from the cavity of a dead hen, the freakiest are the partially-formed eggs. Don't know why they are, but they are just totally freaky.